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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Update #7: Your email address and signature

It's no surprise that getting 400+ entries into the Liz Norris Pay It Forward Debut Novel contest made me hyper aware of your email address (each address was logged into my address book with your entry number) and your signature line (we're pasted your query onto your manuscript to create one .doc for the judges so I see all those sig lines.)

Some of you must be getting paid by your email provider for advertising space right? Otherwise why would you allow them to advertise products on your business email?

Unless you are writing a novel solely to amuse yourself, and have no intention of ever showing it to anyone else, you need to start thinking about the business side of your writing life. An email account that is businesslike (kitten30@hijinx.com isn't); an account that doesn't spam your recipients with advertising links; and an IP address that isn't your other business/job (doctor@gallbladdersareus.com)

There are many parts of this business you have no control over: response times from agents leap to mind; the state of the market; my mood. You have total control over how you present yourself. Exercise it.

8 comments:

Wow! I've always liked gmail, but now Google is starting to freak me out by getting overly aggressive and intrusive. Honestly never noticed the ads before (which is kind of scary). Even creepier, when I clicked on "Why this ad/why these ads?" it said opting out results in more ads! Thanks for the heads up. Wondering how long they've been there without me noticing them. Please tell me this just happened when Google made their big policy shift on March 1st of this year. Might have to switch to my Mac account now for writing. Thanks, Janet, for educating all of us through this contest. Based on your tips and feedback we're all winners so hopefully many of us will have a chance to pay it forward sooner because of you.

You mean I finally got something right?Must have been by default; no degrees to remove body parts, cure disease or broken hearts. And who would want to advertise on my blog, website or address, although if you pay me to tattoo your ad on my butt…ah…don’t bother, nobody sees that either.

As far as I know, Gmail does not insert ads into emails. Some of the other "free" internet service providers do that, but Gmail, to my knowledge, does not.

I use Gmail, but I created a separate account for my writing. It's easy, free, and takes about five minutes. It's worth it to have an email that reads YourNameAuthor @ gmail.com, rather than my "personal" email which reads more like snookiepie @ gmail.com.

Mittens is right. I just sent a test gmail to another email account and no ads came with it although that email account had its own ads. All the gmail ads appear only when I open an email to read it on my own gmail account. Weird. Still don't like the so-called personalized ads though, especially the one from AARP, thank you very much. Rude!

This inspired me to add an email account to my website and connect to the server through Outlook. Outlook also helps me better manage my writing tasks, calendars, etc. Many benefits besides a more professional-looking email.

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I'm a literary agent in NYC. I specialize in crime fiction and narrative non-fiction (history and biography.) I'll be glad to receive a query letter from you; guidelines to help you decide if I'm looking for what you write are below.
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